Suspect Gave Investigators Names of Darknet Vendors After Getting Busted

On December 7, a 19-year-old stood before the judge at the District Court of Landau. Passauer Neue Presse, a German newspaper, reported that the defendant, “a pale, thin boy, looked attentively at the judge as if he were his teacher.” Police officers arrested the 19-year-old for ordering several drugs from the darknet. He ordered numerous packages until a post office randomly checked one and subsequently discovered 118 grams of marijuana.

For a year prior to the arrest, he successfully ordered 50 ecstasy pills, 5.5 grams of MDMA, and a total 150 grams of marijuana. The packages arrived at his home—shared with his family—until the initial discovery. Postal Inspectors in Frankfurt conducted a so-called sample control; they selected a series of packages to search, randomly or via a machine-produced algorithm. Such sampling is required based on the number of packets that flow in and out of a postal station.

The proceedings at the District Court of Landau revealed little about the investigation following the package seizure. Postal Inspectors at the International Post Office in Frankfurt selected the airmail parcel. Officials found it worth mentioning, during the hearing, that the package shipped from Canada. As stated above, the package contained 118 grams of marijuana from a newly-identified vendor.

Local police conducted the investigation into the defendant shortly after the package seizure. They arrested him following the gathering of enough evidence for an indictment and criminal complaint. Earlier this year, in April, he confessed to the case investigators. He said he made orders from “Mr. Green,” “King of Cannabis,” and “Heisenberg.” Unfortunately, the details of his confession are not yet available to the public.

The information made public, from the student’s admission, came directly from the hearing. And from the mouth of the prosecution, at that. The prosecutor told the judge in front of an almost empty courtroom—save for the young man’s mother, hardly recognizable with her head buried in her hands—that the student was genuinely apologetic. “The whole thing had been self-running,” the accused said during his interrogations in April.

In addition to ordering from Canada, his admission of guilt and confession to police revealed that he ordered drugs from Africa. The somewhere-in-Africa vendor stays unidentified; the reporter found no interest in such details. The officers, after the investigation concluded, reported the 50 ecstasy pills, 5.5 grams of MDMA, and 150 grams of marijuana that the suspect ordered. Officials never mentioned whether the 118-gram package, seized by postal inspectors, contributed to the list.

The defendant’s lawyer told the judge and jury that his client only ordered out interest. “It was only young people’s fascination,” said the lawyer.

“That was just stupid; I will not do it anymore,” were the last words uttered by the 19-year-old before the jury found a verdict. With self-admission of guilt and a full confession to the investigators, few doubted the verdict: guilty. The judge who oversaw the case at the District Court of Landau took the defendant’s cooperation into consideration during the sentencing. She ordered the defendant to serve eight months in a juvenile correctional facility—sentence suspended upon two years of drug counseling. The drug counseling consists of regular appointments, urine tests, and community service. He received 80-hours of community service.

So what if he gave them the name of the vendors. That is nothing they can’t log on to the darknet and find out for themselves. I’m sure LE orders from various vendors all the time. If the vendor is following proper OPSEC then they will be protected

How are the Police going to bust the vendors ESPECIALLY if the vendor are not in the same country as the customer? The whole point of being a vendor on the Darknet is so the end user can’t get them busted. Never have your REAL name on a delivery. You can not get done if they can’t prove it was you that ordered the gear.